Heyo! Happy Monday! If you know me, you know I am an avid researcher of true crime. So I figured why not bring this interest to my blog. Today's subject is Francine Wilson, formerly Hughes, who set her house on fire, killing her abusive ex-husband. I admit, this is a lot more somber than my usual posts, and I promise we'll be back to the whimsical weird That Time... posts next week.
First of all, this post requires a trigger warning. There is mention of arson, murder, physical abuse, alcoholism, and rape. If this is not your cup of tea, there are plenty of other history posts.
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| Francine Wilson (then Hughes) with lawyer, Arjen Greydanus, c. 1977 |
Before we get into the homicide, we need some background. Francine Wilson was born Francine Moran in 1947. She grew up watching her alcoholic father beat her mother. Tragic how history seems to repeat itself. At sixteen, she left home after marrying James "Mickey" Hughes. In an interview with PEOPLE, she recalls the abuse starting just weeks after the wedding: "I bought some new clothes and he ripped them off me. I don't know whether I looked too pretty or what, but he didn't want me to look that way. I was shocked because I had never been treated like that before. But what do you do when you are sixteen years old and you had to beg your parents to let you get married? Of course he said 'I'm sorry. Forgive me, it will never happen again," and I believed him. But it did happen again and by that time I was pregnant and felt like I had to make the best of it."
In April 1971, after eight years of abuse, Francine divorced Mickey, but he refused to honor the divorce and beat her when she tried to keep him out of the house. Then that following summer, Micky got into a fatal car accident. It was so bad, he was put in a coma, but when he awoke the first person he asked for was allegedly Francine. She allowed him to move back into the house and nursed him back to health. Again to PEOPLE, she stated, "I really felt trapped after the accident. I don't know why I felt so obligated to that man, but I did. Then the real hell began." The abuse became worse than it had before. With Mickey regularly beating her, destroying furniture and allegedly killing their daughter's kittens. Francine feared that if she ever moved out, he'd kill her as he had constantly threatened.
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| Francine Wilson |
Domestic violence was not something that was taken seriously at the time. In 1976, The New York Times reported that a battered, bloodied woman went to the the police, in hopes that they would help and protect her from her violently abusive husband, but was told, "it's not a Police Department thing" and she was then referred to family court. New York City council man, Leon A. Katz is quoted as asking, "Do we break up a marriage simply because a man beats his wife?" By 1977, the FBI reported that the most underreported crime in the United States was spousal abuse.
In 1976, Francine got her GED and enrolled in a course to become a secretary. She wanted to gain some type of independence away from Mickey. That's when things came to a head. On March 9, 1977, Francine went home after her secretarial course. She found Mickey drunk and furious. Wanting to make food for their four children, Mickey made it incredibly difficult and chided her about quitting school, becoming even more agitated when she refused. He began physically assaulting her to the point that the police were called to the house. Was she finally saved? Unfortunately not. The officers refused to arrest Mickey because they did not see him assault her themselves. One officer testified that Mickey had threatened his ex-wife that "it was all over". However, they didn't do anything. After the officers left, Francine tried making dinner for the children again, but Mickey swept it onto the floor, forcing her to the floor to clean the mess with her hands. Once she had cleaned the food, he emptied the trash on the floor, forcing her to clean it again. Sometime during this, he burned Francine's schoolbooks and threatened to destroy her car so she could not drive to her course. He then forced her to cook only him dinner and afterward, he raped her before falling into a seemingly deep drunken slumber. That's when Francine snapped.
She decided to burn down the house to prevent her from returning to her life with Mickey again, telling PEOPLE, "I was thinking about all the things that had happened to me...all the times he had hurt me...how he had hurt the kids. I stood still for a moment, hesitating and a voice urged me on. It whispered, "Do it! Do it! Do it!'" After telling her children to put on their coats and wait in the car, Francine poured gasoline around Mickey's bed as he slept, lighting it. The fire engulfed their home and by the time the firefighters arrived, he had died of smoke inhalation. Francine immediately drove to the police station to confess what she had done. It is reported that she hysterically announced "I did it!" She was then arrested and charged with murder. During her nine months in prison, she received a death threat from Mickey's brother and emotionally blocked herself off from her children because she did not believe that she would get out.
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| Francine Wilson (then Hughes) with lawyer, Arjen Greydanus |
Francine was found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity. Some people, including Mickey's family and friends believe she got away with murder. However, she found support from other women who had survived domestic abuse. Her mother is quoted as saying: "You did what was best for your husband."
In 1980, Francine married Robert Wilson and became a nurse. She then died at the age of sixty-nine in Leighton, Alabama on March 22, 2017, forty years after killing her ex-husband. Her granddaughter, who she adopted, Molly Wilson, tells Francine to Lansing State Journal, "She didn't feel like [the crime] was something to be proud of. She never felt justified. She never felt free. I think that's king of why she kept it lowkey because I think she was ashamed and haunted by it."
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| (L to R) Dana, Christy Hughes, Francine, Bob Wilson, Jimmy, and Nicole Hughes |
The Hughes case inspired the 1984 film, The Burning Bed, starring Farrah Fawcett as Francine. As well as "Independence Day" by Martina McBride and "The Ballad of Francine Hughes" by Lyn Hardy.
Despite domestic violence finally being recognized as a major issue, it is not resolved. It may never be resolved. In 2019, History.com reported that "twenty people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner" and "one in four women and one in nine men will be victims of severe physical abuse by an intimate partner".
Here is the link to the National Domestic Abuse Hotline - in the United States.
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